Former NFL Players Call for Medical Marijuana to be Taken off Banned List

Football players take an alarming array of pain medication to get back on the field but some believe medical cannabis is a safer and more effective alternative

To understand football, Nate Jackson says, you need to remember one inherent truth about the game: a human body was not made to absorb that kind of punishment.

“There’s no safe way to get hit by a truck,” Jackson puts it.

Jackson, author of the football memoir Slow Getting Up, spent six seasons playing tight end for the Denver Broncos. Recounting a lifetime of football-related injuries is nearly impossible, because, as he put it: “You’re always kind of battling with something.”